Keloid is a type of hypertrophic scars. It is characterized by abnormal proliferation of tissues found within scar tissue that is caused by skin adhesion after artificial damages such as burns, surgical wounds, piercings and tattoo. Keloid sometimes occurs spontaneously. Infection into keloids may cause ulcer. To date, removing scars completely is considered as a sole therapy. In general, probability that a surgery scar becomes keloid is as high as 50%.
Keloid is formed within scar tissues and characterized by fibroblastoma as benign tumors. It tends to overgrow larger than size of original scars.
Currently, while several surgical therapies have been suggested, there is no way to treat keloid with 100% probability. However, all surgical methods to remove scars have high recurrence of keloids. To make matters worse, overgrown keloids may be caused after surgical operations.
There are other treatment approaches for keloids as follows:
Contractubex gel/Hexilak gel has been used to treat keloids. These gels include onion extract, heparin and allantoin. These gels firstly developed for the treatment of scar after thyroidectomy are being currently prescribed for treatment of wounds of all trauma (burns, acne and piercings), post-operative wounds or keloids. While this therapeutic approach is simple, it requires patience of patients.
The mucus of Helix aspersa Muller snail has been used for treatment of keloids. The topical application of this mucus to keloids results in reduced proliferation of hypodermis fibroblast and suppression of excessive collagen production, inhibiting or reducing keloids and hypertrophic scars.
A humidity dressing of silicone gel has been employed for suppression of keloids. This treatment is safe and painless but it has serious problem of severe itching associated with prolonged application.
In addition, a steroid injection is being used for treatment of keloids. The injection of triamcinolone acetonide or other corticosteroids may reduce keloid size and irritation. However, this therapy needs anesthesia for large-sized keloids.
Besides, several therapies such as crimp band, frozen surgical techniques, radiation therapy and laser treatments are being used for the treatment of keloids. Ethanol amine (U.S. Pat. No. 5,128,375) and CM101/GBS toxin (U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,838) are proposed for the treatment of keloids.
Throughout this application, various patents and publications are referenced and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosure of these patents and publications in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to more fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.